9NEWS rolled three Colorado stories into one show, and together they formed a perfect little museum exhibit called “Priorities, Screwed Beyond Recognition.”
Veterans in Denver are getting help navigating federal benefits. Colorado’s governor’s race has money sloshing around it. And on the Auraria campus, a report claims pro-Palestinian protesters crossed the line into antisemitism.
That’s not just a TV rundown. That’s a gut-check with commercial breaks.
Start with the veterans, because that’s the part that should make every normal person’s blood pressure bang a dent in the ceiling. These are people who did what the country asked them to do, and when they come home, the reward is a federal benefits maze apparently designed by a committee of sleep-deprived lawyers, malfunctioning printers, and one guy who really hates plain English.
They “get help navigating” the system because the system is too damn confusing to navigate by itself. That sentence should embarrass every flag-pin politician in America. If the help was earned, why does it require a sherpa, three passwords, a claims file, and the patience of a monk trapped at the DMV?
This is the sacred ritual of American bureaucracy: promise big, deliver late, hide the doorway, then celebrate the nonprofit or local office that helps people find the hallway. Government creates the swamp, somebody else builds a canoe, and the politicians show up for the ribbon-cutting like they invented water rescue.
Meanwhile, Colorado’s race for governor has money behind it worth examining, because of course it does. The donor class never needs help “navigating” anything. Somehow the checks find the campaigns. The consultants find the candidates. The PAC money finds the mailbox. The political machine can track influence, package ambition, and turn a statewide race into a cash-fueled employment program for message-test goblins.
But a veteran trying to access benefits already earned? Good luck, pal. Take a number, upload the form, re-upload the form, call the number, wait forever, and pray the system does not calmly eat your paperwork like a raccoon in a shredder.
That is the insult. Not just that government is complicated. Complicated happens. The insult is that the people with power only seem capable of simplifying systems when the system serves them.
Campaign finance? There are databases, dashboards, filings, compliance teams, strategic memos, donor calls, and enough political infrastructure to launch a moon mission made entirely of yard signs. Veterans’ benefits? Better hope someone in Denver can help you translate the federal hieroglyphics.
Then there’s Auraria, where a report claims pro-Palestinian protesters crossed the line into antisemitism. Nobody needs to smear all protesters to say this plainly: if conduct targets Jews, harasses Jews, or crosses into antisemitism, grown adults should be able to recognize it without assembling a blue-ribbon cowardice committee.
But campuses have become Olympic training centers for institutional throat-clearing. Administrators can produce policies thick enough to stop a bullet, but the moment reality walks in wearing boots, everyone suddenly develops a passionate commitment to nuance, process, and avoiding eye contact.
Colorado has gotten very good at spectacle management. Political money spectacle. Campus protest spectacle. Media segment spectacle. We can narrate dysfunction in high definition. We can form task forces around it. We can launder it through panels, reports, spokespeople, and carefully moisturized statements.
But the guy who served still needs help getting through the benefits machine.
That is Colorado’s modern governing class in one ugly snapshot: plenty of polish for politics, plenty of oxygen for activist chaos, plenty of cash for campaigns, but basic decency still comes wrapped in paperwork hell.
Veterans earned help. They should not need a decoder ring to claim it. Anything less is government-by-bullshit with a commemorative coin.
Source: 9NEWS
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